Filing appliances, binders, or files of the above-mentioned type, are used in huge amounts almost everywhere. A file or a filing appliance generally relates in the present application to a cover for use over and/(or) under a set of sheets of paper, like the cover of a book. The cover can, but need not, be more or less stiff. The file is provided with means for holding these sheets, which sheets in principle can also be made of other materials than paper. These means can be openable, such as in a ring binder, but the sheets of paper can also be permanently fixed to the filing appliance e.g. by means of a spiral binding, such as in a spiral binder, or by gluing, folding etc.
Filing appliances or files of this type are, as mentioned above, widely used, in many fields of application. A spiral binder can be used, for instance, to make notes about a specific subject field. The user of the binder can then use it at, for instance, lectures, seminars and in individual studies.
Filing appliances of prior-art type have, however, a number of limitations. It can be difficult to copy notes from such a filing appliance and this necessitates at least the use of a special copying machine which is not available to all users. Sharing, over long distances, notes from a filing appliance of prior-art type is not easy either. Of course, a sheet copied from the file can be faxed, which in addition to the above-mentioned copying machine also requires a fax machine. Alternatively, the pages that are to be transmitted can be scanned, which requires a flat bed scanner. In general, filing appliances of prior-art type result in complicated and expensive handling and communication of information, if writing down things on the sheets of paper of the filing appliance and reading the information written on the sheets is not sufficient.